Feed cut. Thanks...puts me out of my misery. Of course, I'll watch when it's restored. Holy s***!!!! That last exchange after Beasley f'd up on the corner. Bornstein with room and can't trap the ball. Onyewu finally up to Altidore and HE can't control the ball. Ugh.

I've never attacked Bradley, but I can't understand his selections and why we also seem so terrible at the beginning of matches. If we play like this, we're not getting out of the group stages next summer.

Bob must go. Need somebody with an outsider perspective. Beasley needs a long hiatus from the national team. we've actually regressed from 2006. it's not enjoyable to watch them anymore. even when we win it's boring. no one seems to care and everyone is timid.

Onyewu has never impressed me. He's clumsy at times, slow often makes bad decisions and is quick to temper. I would rather play against Onyewu then with him. I would constsntly insult him during game and he would end up with a red card.

ANOTHER thing that pisses me off about bob bradley: after the italy game he said "well, in these types of tournaments if you lose the first game you have two more games to try to move into the next round." that's not true bob, you dumba55!!! if you lose your first game, your next game is do-or-die! he reminds me too much of bruce arena. :(

I've never been on the fire Bradley bandwagon, but his choices this tournament have been puzzling and failed. The team is clearly regressing. If Beasley is on the field for the start of the second half Gulati should come down to the field and fire Bradley mid-game.

Okay, so Clark and Kljestan are banned to the Mastroeni school of 'How NOT to Screw Your Team' until further notice. At least the central midfield is cleaned up a bit. Feilhaber will be ready for the World Cup if he's playing at his club this year.

Sorry, that was a justified red. Sasha lost the ball and immediately came up on a hard, unjustifiable foul. He was being stupid and immature, but I think we're better without him on the field.

Posted by: figgy_va | June 18, 2009 11:16 AM | Report abuse

You're totally out of it.

He barely touched the player. He got the red because the Brasilians are still a bunch of diving dogs. He was late which might deserve a yellow but a red was only because of the referee falling for the antics. He did not see the play and was covering for himself.

I haven't written anything bad about Bob Bradley until now. But his team struggles to be where it is in CONCACAF and fails on the bigger stage. They make rash tackles and lose focus often.

I don't know how practical it is to switch coaches one year before the WC. Who would take a one-year contract with this team? So I think we're stuck with him for another year.

That said, he had better make some hard decisions for the Gold Cup. Find some players who are willing to fight hard for 90', who don't make stupid tackles or lose the ball, who chase down balls (Spector is embarrassing with his jogs), some players who are playing for the USA and not auditioning for a summer transfer.

Someone mocked me for saying something like this before, but the entire Brazilian squad sang their national anthem before the game. I think Bornstein and Howard were singing ours and that's it. I feel like that says something about heart, or the lack thereof.

You definitely cannot blame this on FIFA officiating. We are just not good enough and Bradley sucks as a coach. This is the same crap that we faced in 2006. We have about four to five players that show better than average on the international level now:

Howard
Onyewu
Bocanegra
Donovan
Bradley

Altidore, Spector,and typically Dempsey are on the fringe. Other than that there is not much else. Hejduk is great, but the man is old. I am glad this tournament went down this way because Bradley should be shown the door if this team wants to be better than the WC 2006 team. I could see Jermaine Jones making the defensive MF better, but if Adu and Altidore do not start playing for their club teams we are a very mediocre team.

One thing to notice is that it is almost MLS players who get these cards, and I think it's because they are allowed to get away with those sorts of fouls in MLS.

They aren't trained to not hack someone just because they lost the ball because they know that they won't suffer any consequences in MLS, but at the international level it just isn't tolerated. Of course, USSF has trained their refs not to call things, so that's not going to change any time soon

sasha's foul was a red, just like rico's was. i agree that it is a function of all of the poor officiating in mls. those fouls would very likely not even be called in mls, but they are serious fouls...

Well it's time to look at coaching and player performance. Believe me, there's a lot to look at. Might be too late for a coaching change but the player selection has to be scrubbed. Start by selecting players out. Bye-Bye Beasley. Go on from there. If we have to lose, do it with new faces. Cheers/ts

ANOTHER thing i have against bob bradley: he says adu needs to be playing regularly for his club team to get a chance with the national team...but apparently his boy beasly doesn't need to be playing for rangers! he played like 5 or 6 games for them all of last season. wtf?!

Brazil should be ashamed of themselves for diving through out this match, when they clearly do not need to. They can play free flowing, fast paced, elegant soccer whenever they want. Why do they feel the need to cheapen themselves with diving and theatrics.

Now that the pain is almost over, agree with a post I've heard a couple of times. The best we can take away from this game -

Spector is our new right back. Kljestan and Beasley are out of the pool until further notice.

This HAS to be a wake up call for either USSF or Bradley. He needs to get his ish together or we need a coach that will. I'd rather see us play like this now than in a year from now, and anything that could change how we've played since the 2007 Gold Cup is a good thing.

Do I want to watch this game when I get home? Sounds like another display of pointless soccer from the US. The US team has no style of play. Are they a defensive team, an offensive team (hahahaha) or a counterattacking team? Who are they supposed to be? After all this time Bradley hasn't developed anything resembling a system or one player who wants to attack the other team's goal.

Good point about Beasley not playing for his club. Torres plays for his club yet can't get in a game since Costa Rica. Jozy doesn't even play for the club he was loaned to. Against Egypt there had better be a youth movement. Adu and Torres should get some minutes.

Didnt you hear? Torres slept with Bradleys wife. There's no other explanation why he isnt in the lineup.

Beasely should NOT play for the US until he is getting regular ball. Same for Kljestan and Adu.

The team has gotten too complacent and everyone is assured of their spots. There's 4 guaranteed starters in my mind: Howard, Boca, Onyewu, Donovan. Everyone else should be fighting for their spot on the field everyday.

Do I want to watch this game when I get home? Sounds like another display of pointless soccer from the US. The US team has no style of play. Are they a defensive team, an offensive team (hahahaha) or a counterattacking team? Who are they supposed to be? After all this time Bradley hasn't developed anything resembling a system or one player who wants to attack the other team's goal.

Posted by: Solnoir | June 18, 2009 11:49 AM

Some great individual displays by Brazil if you are interested.

And counterattacking? HA. A US player gets the ball on a turnover, turns up field and starts to advance the ball, looks up and finds no one making runs off the ball.

THe biggest problem the USMNT has is that none of these guys have real pace or ball skills. They can't hold possession. Brazilians got in their face when USA players had the ball, because they knew the USA players would turn it over -- and they laid off a little from USA players who were getting passes because they knew that first touch would get away from the Americans and come right to them.

The USSF needs to extend the Academy system into the crib. Adopt some infants and turn them into real soccer players.

Don't just stop with firing Bradely; clean out the entire US Soccer coaching staff, top to bottom. We need fresh ideas in American soccer, and the current crop of coaches is not providing them.

Fire them all, forget SA 2010 -- even if we make it, the US team will be humiliated in going 0-3 -- and we may have something in time for 2014, if we bring in youth and senior national team staff who know how to develop technically and tactically sophisticated players. Which pretty much rules out every American coach out there.

Bob Bradley needs to go. This team is uninspired. They are complacent. You are playing Brazil in South Africa, where the next year's World Cup will be, and you are bored! BORED! Incredible.

There are 20 minutes left to go in the game and you have one sub left. Oh, but the game seems to be going well. Clint Dempsey is playing great. Connor Casey is running his butt off. No need to make any changes.

Only Donovan and Howard seemed to care today. Bob Bradley certainly didn't. He needs to go.

Not that today's players were any good, but i don't understand the love for Torres. His inability to let his right foot even get a whiff of the ball is a huge liability, especially at this level. I don't think he's the answer.
Complete overhaul is needed. At this point I would settle for a less-talented but more hard-working, hungry and spirited roster. E.g., field an all-MLS team. I'm getting a little tired of the Europe-based players and their apparent sense of entitlement.

Here's my thing. I'm a naturalized citizen - an American by choice - and I'm lucky to be one. I feel proud to sing the Star Spangled Banner loudly, when the rest of the fans reluctantly stand out of obligation, because it means something to me. My 7 year old noticed me doing this a year ago and he learned the words from me (and youtube). My 5 year old knows the lyrics better than most adults.

Look. I know we're not living in a Norman Rockwell painting. But most jus soli American citizens take their birthright for granted and do not understand how the flag and the Star Spangled Banner are powerful symbols of the United States for those of us not born here.

And when I see our players - who are supposed to represent the USA - standing because they have to and chewing gum, and when I see the opponents and their fans singing with pride, I feel sad.

honestly, what is interesting about bora milutinovic? he is basically just a hired gun brought in by desperate federations. he is clearly not a long-term solution. why not dick advocaat? or johan neeskens? or buno metsu? (my order of preference.)

honestly, what is interesting about bora milutinovic? he is basically just a hired gun brought in by desperate federations. he is clearly not a long-term solution. why not dick advocaat? or johan neeskens? or buno metsu? (my order of preference.)

jose mourinho would never accept the usa job. he is a club manager and is very much in love with being in the day-to-day spotlight. being a national team manager means you are only in the spotlight a couple times a year, at most.

First with the really bad. Beasley and Kljestan. Just awful today. Beasley may have finalized playing his way off the rotation. Gave the ball away numerous times, didn't do anything dynamic, and was the initiating culprit on the 2nd goal. Kljestan was almost entirely invisible in the midfield, did nothing defensively (including being completely lost on the counterattack during the 2nd goal, and providing a very weak track), then drew a red card. Absolutely unacceptable.

Spector was actually a bright spot for most of the game, with the exception of his awful marking on aerial challenges. He was embarrassed on the first goal, then gave up at least one more (if not more) clean headers straight in front of goal. It's a shame, because he really did play well otherwise, being active up front and composed in the back.

Bornstein was owned on the left side. Brazil consistently picked on Bornstein, and it worked to great effect. He worked hard and got forward decently, but this was predictable for me. He was simply outclassed.

Demerit was solid. Nothing great, nothing terrible. Howard was left out to dry yet again, and made a few nice saves.

Bradley was up and down this game. He wasn't nearly as effective as he normally is in disrupting the flow of the opposing attack, which is expected going against Brazil. He showed good vision, but was a touch off on a number of fairly simple balls that ended up being turned over.

Dempsey, for all his dancing, plays the game painfully slow. It kills the flow of the game. He's got good skill, is a creative mind, but he almost always allows the defense to set even if we're on a break. He's slowly falling out of favor with me. And he's awful on set pieces.

Donovan worked hard and made a couple (one in particular) impressive runs with the ball. He didn't have much help, but he's finally providing consistent effort out there. I've been happy with Donovan in this tournament.

Altidore once again was all alone up top, and he struggled as a result. He wasn't drawing the fouls he normally does, but he did draw a corner with some nice footwork in the corner, something we lack with our other strikers. As soon as Casey came in and Altidore had someone to work with, he made an impressive run and created the only US chance up to that point before getting pulled (which was an awful decision).

Casey was lazy, slow, weak on the ball, and did hardly anything on the field. He gets points only for his header of the crossbar (which was nice) and his one layoff to Altidore. Two positive touches in 40 minutes. Not nearly good enough.

Feilhaber played well as a substitute, including a great attempt that hit the crossbar, as well as displaying his patented vision. That 2nd center-mid spot should be his so long as he doesn't pull a Clark-Kljestan.

I decided to watch a recording -- of the first Brazil goal. Utter crap, on several levels. First, the free kick was a total gift. Bradley puts his hand on Ramires's arm for an instant, and then pulls it away -- without pulling on the Brazilian. Then, the Brazilian dives.

On the actual free kick -- a bit of disorganization. Watching live, I thought Melo was offside. I'm guessing Spector did, too...when he let Melo get in front of him. But, DeMerit failed to hold his ground as a Brazilian player charges into him. This moves DeMerit back, arguably playing Melo onside. It's close enough anyway.

As dominant as Brazil seemed, if they don't get that phantom foul call, and if Beasley doesn't make that hideous error on the short corner pass, this game might have ended very differently.

That is not to say that USA is really competitive, but if you look at the rest of the game... Maybe Kljestan doesn't get sent off, and maybe Brazil doesn't get that last goal a few minutes later. Howard made some big saves, and the USA hit some crossbars. The rest of the game doesn't look so lopsided, if you take away those first two goals which should never have happened.

I forgot to mention Gooch. The lone truly bright spot today. I thought he played excellent and held the center of the pitch in check. It's a shame his teammates didn't step to his level. Great game by Gooch.

And on another note, I don't know what world Bob Bradley lives in that he thinks a good substitution when you're down 2-0 and playing with 10 men is to pull of a dynamic striker for a central midfielder, and sit in a 4-4-1. It's pathetic. I'm convinced he wasn't even attempting to win the game at that point, just trying to protect from a bigger loss. I've been slow to criticize Bradley too much, but that's unacceptable.

I don't know what world Bob Bradley lives in that he thinks a good substitution when you're down 2-0 and playing with 10 men is to pull of a dynamic striker for a central midfielder, and sit in a 4-4-1.
Posted by: psps23
=================

I agree with psps -- Gooch was out of this world today. The one player who looked like he could even crack the Brazil roster. He doesn't have the ball skills, of course, but he stepped up to be a big-time defender today. I bet his agent is thrilled.

It think this may have been his most solid effort to date -- though, I suppose some of that may be a product of the success Brazil was having moving the ball on the wings. Gooch wasn't challenged as much as he has been in other games. Still, I was impressed.

The only positive for the Yanks IS how completely awful they've played at the Confed. Cup.

Now it cannot be disputed: This US side is not good enough and cannot go to the World Cup as presently constituted. THE EMPEROR HAS NO CLOTHES.

IMO, with the exception of Timmy Howard and Gooch Onyewu, everyone's place in the starting XI is up for discussion.

I don't think Bob Bradley should be fired simply because of the Confed. Cup showing. However, the US must have a tactically astute coach. One of the reasons the Americans reached the QF of WC2002: Bruce Arena had a superior game plan to his Portuguese and Mexican opposite numbers. If Bradley can't do the same, get someone in who can.

The upcoming Gold Cup represents a great chance to overhaul the squad and give opportunities to younger, hungrier -- and hopefully better --players.

Or, how quickly can we get US passports for some qualty Brazilians who have no hope of playing for the Seleção? (hahaha)

Call me crazy, but Bob should call Marc Burch into camp.. I think he's lost his motivation this season. See if he can step it up. If not, no big deal. If he can play in CONCACAF, the we can have a servicable defender who can take free kicks away from Landon.

One of the reasons the Americans reached the QF of WC2002: Bruce Arena had a superior game plan to his Portuguese and Mexican opposite numbers.
Posted by: noahspurs | June 18, 2009 2:31 PM

the other reason: the players actually finished their chances. the coach can't do much about finishing and he's not on the field playing, so those things are out of Bradley's control right now. even where lineup selection and tactics are concerned, he's limited by what his players are capable of. but certainly this group should be capable of better than this. and the way they've played at times (first 5 minutes of 2nd half today, for instance) shows that it can happen, but it's not happening consistently. we have a chance to improve this team over the next 12 months, and bringing in a new coach to do a full re-evaluation of the talent pool and tactics seems like it might be the best way to do that at this point.

Here's my thing. I'm a naturalized citizen - an American by choice - and I'm lucky to be one. I feel proud to sing the Star Spangled Banner loudly, when the rest of the fans reluctantly stand out of obligation, because it means something to me. My 7 year old noticed me doing this a year ago and he learned the words from me (and youtube). My 5 year old knows the lyrics better than most adults.

Look. I know we're not living in a Norman Rockwell painting. But most jus soli American citizens take their birthright for granted and do not understand how the flag and the Star Spangled Banner are powerful symbols of the United States for those of us not born here.

And when I see our players - who are supposed to represent the USA - standing because they have to and chewing gum, and when I see the opponents and their fans singing with pride, I feel sad.

Here's my thing. I'm a naturalized citizen - an American by choice - and I'm lucky to be one. I feel proud to sing the Star Spangled Banner loudly, when the rest of the fans reluctantly stand out of obligation, because it means something to me. My 7 year old noticed me doing this a year ago and he learned the words from me (and youtube). My 5 year old knows the lyrics better than most adults.

Look. I know we're not living in a Norman Rockwell painting. But most jus soli American citizens take their birthright for granted and do not understand how the flag and the Star Spangled Banner are powerful symbols of the United States for those of us not born here.

And when I see our players - who are supposed to represent the USA - standing because they have to and chewing gum, and when I see the opponents and their fans singing with pride, I feel sad.

Posted by: I-270Exit1

------------------------------------------

Right on!!

I'm a 3rd generation American myself, and I feel as strongly as you about this. My 5 year old stood up and put his hand on his heart when he heard the Anthem played at the beginning of the game. I was already standing (folding laundry) and I was surprised that he did that. I explained to him that he didn't have to do that while watching at home on TV.

I get so mad at the folks who don't take their hats, off, talk, and yell the stupid "Oh."

I'm quiet and respectful when I hear other countries anthems, and I love to see those folks sing loud and proud. I wish more Americans felt like us.

My frustration with Bradley has been rising and now has reached the point where he needs to go. Why didn't pull Dempsey yesterday when we were up 1-0 with 10 men? Wouldn't you play for the 1-0 victory or 1-1 tie at worst in a World Cup situation? Why the continued love for DMB? Why can't Adu get on the field? Where is Cooper? This team is nowhere near the 2002 and we have one year before another potentially terrible world cup performance.

Here's my view on the National Anthem. I played at a very high collegiate level, and we obviously had the National Anthem played before every home game. Not once did I sing for it. It has nothing to do with obligation. It has nothing to do with a lack of pride. It has nothing to do with taking anything for granted. Plain and simple, I (and I assume many people) feel the effect much more simply by listening to it rather than chanting along. There's an intangible quality that's felt standing in the spotlight of a crowd, before an intense match, with adrenaline flowing through you, while hearing that song. You can "feel" the song, and for most athletes, it's the final piece of the routine that puts your mindset and focus into the game. Nothing gets you more pumped than listening to the anthem before a big match. Listening being the key word.

Anyway, that's my take. There is no lack of respect for the anthem, flag, or country simply because a player isn't singing. IMO, the effect is much, much more powerful (and meaningful) when it's felt from the inside rather than feeling the need to show it on the outside. Just my .02.

Not for nothing but maybe if these guys tried singing the anthem it would help with the pre-game jitters and get them juiced for the task at hand. Those are some powerful words and they have helped many an American through the tough and dark places in the world and in life. These are the words that inspired people like us to choose to become American. When I am at home watching a match I get up and sing the anthem and my kids join in, and we feel a swell of pride and love for our country - and we're just in the family room watching TV...

I'm serious. As far as I can tell, Gomez has never worn the Argentina national jersey, at any level. He could adopt USA citizenship and play for us. The CAM we're missing. If he came on board, I bet he scores a free kick goal at the World Cup.